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Uncommon star 28 EP

HD 111149

RA 191.9431° · Dec -57.0445° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
28 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Under the Southern Cross +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 28

6 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Under the Southern Cross · +8
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 3.7 million times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K4/K5III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.4 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Crux.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around April — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out deep orange-red (B−V 1.6) — one of the coolest surfaces a star can have while still fusing.

By the numbers

  • Surface temperature. Its colour puts the surface at roughly 3600 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

What's in a name

  • Its catalogue. The HD number is from the Henry Draper Catalogue, in which Annie Jump Cannon personally classified the spectra of nearly 400,000 stars — still the largest such feat by one person.

Properties

absmag
-11.6
bv
1.634
constellation
Cru
luminosity
3801893.9632
mag
8.4
name
HD 111149
spect
K4/K5III

About HD 111149

HD 111149 is an uncommon star. It sits in the constellation Cru, shines at apparent magnitude 8.4 and has spectral type K4/K5III.

Its spectrum reads K4/K5III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 111149 in the constellation Cru. At apparent magnitude 8.4, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 111149 is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.

Why HD 111149 is an uncommon star

HD 111149 scores 28 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Under the Southern Cross, Orange K-type star, Giant star and Deep red star — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.